ALMATY - Turkish Interior Minister Abdulkadir Aksu said on Friday that Turkey would continue supporting institutionalization process of the Conference of Interactions and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA).
Speaking at the ministerial-level meeting of CICA in Almaty, Kazakhstan, Aksu said, ''the confidence-building measures, which we will sign during CICA meeting, includes a series of political, economic, humanitarian, military and environmental measures. We should establish the mechanisms as soon as possible to put these measures into force.''
''Turkey will continue supporting institutionalization process of CICA. We believe that CICA will provide us with significant opportunities to develop our cooperation between our countries'' Aksu said.
-CICA-
CICA is a regional process which was initiated in 1992 upon initiatives of President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan.
The process aims to develop an international cooperation mechanism in Asia.
Turkey, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, the People's Republic of China, Palestine, India, Israel, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Egypt, Mongolia, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Russia and Tajikistan are members of the CICA.
The United States, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea, Japan, Thailand, Ukraine, the United Nations, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the EU are attending as observers.
UN has been supporting CICA as a regional cooperation and security movement.
(UK-ULG) 22.10.2004